Book 10: The City of the Kings - Patch Notes

Book 10: The City of the Kings Overview

New Area : Annúminas!

• The main theme in the area is one of battle over the ruins of the past. The Rangers are far out-numbered by Angmar and its troops. The players are coming to help turn the tides in this struggle.
  
• The area around Annúminas is full of rolling green hills and fields, leading the edge of Lake Evendim (Nenuial). Upon the banks of Nenuial lies the ruined city of Annúminas, long abandoned by the Men of Arnor in the days of Amlaith, who moved the seat of power from Annúminas to Fornost.
  
• The city of Annúminas was one of the greatest achievements of the Men of Westernesse, built during the reign of Elendil. Great works of architecture spanned the city across multiple levels, though nearly three-thousand years of weather and abandonment have left much of it in ruin. Where once were beautiful gardens and tall spires now are pools of filth and decay and jagged ruined towers.

Monster play enhancements and new quests

• Play as a Troll
  
• Play as a Ranger
  
• Play as a Chicken
  
• Gain powerful new keep defenses
  
• Gain allies in keep assaults

New content:

• Three new Annúminas instances
  
• New Ered Luin reputation Dungeon
  
• New Barrow Downs reputation Dungeon
  
• More integrated Events: Ettenmoors Events, Annúminas Events (three)
  
• More special game Events: Trestlebridge Invasion, Ost Guruth Invasion, Tale of the Shipwrecked Mariners
  
• New Ettenmoors quests
  
• New Annúminas quests

New Areas:

• 6 Instances, 2 Public Dungeons, Annúminas Ruins Landscape

Quests:

• ~24 new Ettenmoors landscape quests
  
• 8 new Session Play quests
  
  
  • 2 types of Troll play quests
    
  • 2 types of Ranger play quests
    
  • 4 Chicken quests
  
  
• 30 new Annúminas landscape and dungeon quests
  
• 14 quest Epic Book 10 arc
  
• 16 new side quests
  
• 4 new Hunter Class quests
  
• 39 new reputation quests
  
• 7 new reputation vector quests

Classes

• Hunter Revamp
  
• Additional Skills to round out the Hunter's non-combat skills
  
• Improved single target DPS
  
• More Traps
  
• Tracking Improvements
  
• New Travel skills
  
• Captain Revamp
  
• Additional skills to boost the Captain's combat variety.
  
• Banner Standards (instead of Herald)
  
• Improvements to Herald appearance
  
• Defensive Targeting

Keep Siege Enhancements

• Monster Play Events (numerous events open and close based on keep/POI ownership)
  
• Players can gain access to new keep defenses such as murder holes, arrow traps, and area of effect buffs.
  
• Both attacking and defending players have more option to call on the aid of ‘allies' as reinforcements.

Easy access to Monster Play

• Players can now enter as monster players directly from the character selection screen. No need to even log in as a player!

Reputation System

• Reputation can be earned with a number of factions in the game, each of which has its own set of unlocked rewards associated with it. The main rewards are vendor items, with secondary awards including access to a Reputation Lodge, and possible access to additional quest lines or dungeon spaces.
  
• Each Reputation is based in a particular hub, and has a specific set of trophies and crafting recipes associated with it.
  
• Reputation is earned primarily through Trophy drop turn-ins from landscape mobs, Crafting turn-ins, and in some cases via kills inside instances. In the case of trophy drops and crafted items, these are converted into reputation gains via turn-in quests available at the hub representing the faction.
  
• The Reputation system enables players to earn positive and negative standing with races/groups/affiliations based off of both monster kills and quest completion.
  The factions are in Book 10 are:
  
  
  • Elves of Rivendell: The Elves of Rivendell have a great many matters of concern, but the aspect that the faction itself deals with is the recent intrusion of a group of hill-men and Angmarim who claim to be ancestors of the ancient kingdom of Rhudaur, and have moved into the ruins discovered in the Trollshaws and the Misty Mountains.
    
    
    • The Elves have no interest in seeing Angmar reconstruct its corrupt proxy kingdom from the wars of old, and are working to expel these unwanted intruders from the edges of their domain.
    
    
  • The Council of the North (Angmar): A small alliance of elite warriors and scholars who have taken their fight into the belly of the beast of Angmar, either out of necessity or great personal sacrifice & bravery.
    
    
    
    • This group is composed of rebel Angmarim Hill-men, Elves, Dwarves and Rangers. They fight not to assault Carn Dum directly, but to disrupt their war machine by launching attacks on their supply trains, gathering intelligence on their movements, and killing important personages when the opportunity arises.
    
    
  • Rangers of Esteldin: The Rangers of Esteldin stand athwart the main path of the advancing armies of Angmar, as such they are constantly making sorties against the orcish forces that have invaded the Northdowns.
    
    
    
    • They also wish to strike further afield, at the forces encamped in Fornost, and at the staging grounds in the Eastern Sulfer Swamps, and will support adventurers and warriors who are willing to take these dreadful risks.
      
    • Wardens of Annúminas are a specific branch of the Rangers who have long been tasked with protecting the ruined city of Annúminas, and the tombs of their ancestors from looters, robbers and other enemies
      of that ilk.
      
    • Recently they have become overwhelmed by the influx of bandits and the intrusion of powerful forces backed by Angmar into the city of Annúminas itself, and they are desperate for aid from any quarter that might help
      them dislodge the invaders from the city they have been sworn to defend.
    
    
  • The Longbeards of Thorin's Hall have had a relatively quiet
    existence since the expulsion of the Dourhands from Thorin's Hall. The recent discovery of the Dourhand's ancient city, renamed anew Sarnur, has caused many of the Longbeards concern.
    
    
    
    • With the blood-price set against the Dourhands not yet repaid, the Longbeards of Thorin's Hall are loathe to let the Dourhands begin construction on a fortified stronghold so near to their city.
    
    
  • The Men of Bree have recently had their peaceful existence disturbed by Black Riders, upsetting the quiet town and driving off animals. But trouble in Bree town is not the only thing that was stirred up. The captain of the Ringwraiths himself traveled to the barrow downs and began awakening things that should have remained sleeping.
  
  
  
  
  • The Mathom Society (Hobbits): The Hobbits of the shire enjoy many fine leisure activities when they are not so busy eating or growing food. One such activity is the collection of Mathoms, items that hobbits have no particular use for but hold onto anyway.
    
  • The Mathom Society are a group of hobbits dedicated to the collection of such items, and they scour the countryside in search of new items to add to their collection, when they aren't busy planning a mathom society dinner that is!
  
  

Barter System

• Players can use certain trophy drops to "purchase" cool new items. For example, a player visits a bartering NPC and sees, through vendor style UI, that this NPC will trade goods for trophies, coin, destiny points or a combination thereof. Action picker dialogue explains where the player can find the corresponding trophies and items for barter; bartering with an NPC is gated by reputation usage restriction. If a player has no trophies needed to barter, the rewards display but are grayed out.

Of Special Note


UI Scaling: Rejoice! Dry your squinting eyes, use that maximum resolution, and take your nose off the screen. UI scaling is here! There are a lot of new sliders in the UI Settings page of the options panel. Drag one and watch your excitement grow (or shrink)!

Level Challenge Ratings: All landscape and dungeons in the game now have a level challenge rating associated with them. If you enter a location that you do not meet the challenge rating for, the radar and billboard feedback for that area will be red. Players that are significantly below the challenge rating for an area or dungeon will now find monsters in those locations much more aggressive. Players that are significantly below the challenge rating for an area or dungeon will now be sent to their Map Home location upon defeat.

Expanded Vault Space: The vault can now be expanded, at a cost. The vault now has a number of locked bag slots that can be opened if you have achieved a certain level and have enough money, but will give you an additional 15 slots each time you upgrade!

Roleplaying Chat Channel: A new chat channel has been introduced to brighten the day of all of you role-players out there. Tired of OOC? Turn on the RP filter and type to your fellow RPers with /rpc! Like other public channels, the Roleplaying channel is regional.

Raid Locks: Raid locks are based on the leader now. The leaders raid lock must be equal to or greater then anyone elses in the raid. If his is not then the group **temporarily** will have to lend control to the highest lock (or one of is a few are equal) and then have someone enter the instance. This is because we now want the locks to meld together, and the easiest and less computational way is to pick a pivot point without computation... leader!

So, the leader's lock will dictate the raid lock and everyone will meet it if they can. Only subsets will be allowed. Ex1: Leader: 1, 3, 5 locks Fellow1: 1, 5 locks Fellow2: 1, 2, 3 This will fail because Fellow2 is not a valid subset of the leaders Ex2: Leader: 1, 3, 5 locks Fellow1: 1, 5 locks Fellow2: none This will succeed because Fellow1 has a valid subset and can inherit lock 3 now... Fellow2 will be automatically promoted since he has 0 for a lock tag.

Monster player Tribes: Monster Players may now create Tribes! See the Tribe Scrivener in Gramsfoot to buy your Charter. Please note: any tribes with less than 6 players will be disbanded (following the same rules as Player Kinships).

Crafting: Crafting has had a major pass and lots of tweaks! Jewellers can now make earrings and bracelets, for a total of 72 new jewellery pieces and 38 new recipes. Additionally there were lots of new recipes added for Hunter-only items, like Traps and Bow Chants. See the Crafting section for more details, and for an overview, please see this post.

In-game clock: The in-game day time indicator has been updated to have more gradations to the day. Each in-game day is now broken up into the following segments: Day: Dawn - Morning - Noon - Afternoon Dusk Night: Gloaming - Evening - Midnight - Late Watches - Foredawn. By breaking the day up in this fashion, you can better tell what part of the in-game day you are currently in.

But I wanted a pony!: If you have completed the "Proving Your
Quality" race and have purchased a mount by accident that you do not want or cannot use, you are now in luck! Horse-master Éogar has a quest that allows you to swap your mount for a receipt that can be used to purchase a different mount. Once you have your receipt from Éogar, speak to Cam Applewood, Éogar's stablehand, to select a different mount.

Toggle Skills While Mounted: The following toggle skills will now
remain active when mounted:

• Burglar: Track Treasure
  
• Champion: Glory, Fervour
  
• Guardian: Guardian's Threat, Guardian's Parry, Guardian's
  Defence
  
• Hunter: Stance Precision, Stance Strength, Stance Endurance
  
• Common Skills: Track Mines, Track Crops, Track Wood, Track Artifacts

Emotes: We've added 40 new emotes! /clap

User Interface: The UI team has been hard at work with more UI fixes and improvements!

Are we there yet? By popular demand, the "Return to Hobbiton" race trait has been changed to "Return to Michel Delving" (and that's exactly what it does!)

Holly Hornblower: The quest "A True Friend of Holly Hornblower"

was not giving players the pie recipe when selected as a quest reward. Players who already have the pie recipe could not take it from their bank or learn the recipe. The recipe should now be usable and removable from the bank. If you previously completed the quest please talk to Holly again to get the Pie Recipe if you were unable to get it before.

Easier to play with your friends: Players can now use the quest NPC to join their fellowship in a private encounter once they accept all available quests from the NPC. For example, if someone in your fellowship has started the Weathertop Instance but you have not done any of the quests, once you accept the first quest from Candaith, you will get the option to enter the Weathertop Instance with your fellowship.

Gameplay (misc.)

• Mounted Movement Speed will now be slowed by falling injuries
  
• Falling while riding a horse no longer causes you to dismount.
  
• High End Fellowship Maneuvers have been rebalanced. This includes a change to the high end, which reduces their effectiveness by 35% for damage dealing maneuvers
  
• Healing and Power maneuvers have been reduced by about 20%.
  
• Improved responsiveness of vital regeneration, especially with regards to the effects of food and entering or exiting combat.
  
• Fixed an issue with raid locks not saving on the instance correctly.
  
• Fixed the issue with pets failing to attack when ordered to.

Loot System

• Need and Greed rolls will now be shown to the rest of the fellowship.
  
• When only one party member rolls on an item, we no longer display all of the other rolls.
  
• Switching the looting type to Master looter no longer resets the loot quality to None

Skills/Classes

• Removed the Parry, Block, and Evade disabling from Wounds. These have been replaced with percentage debuffs to each avoidance chance. We moved the Parry debuff from the "Injury" debuff and put it on a new wound debuff called "Laceration". This effect lasts 10/20/30s just like the Wounds which debuff Block and Evade. Additionally, all these effects (and other Poison, Disease, and Fear effects) have a periodic chance to be resisted after application. Get those resistance chances higher!

Champion

• Champion Shoot skill no longer costs 1 copper to train. Cost has been increased to 40 silver.

Lore-master

• The Lore-master "lore" skills (Fire-, Wind- and Herb-lore) will now stack with each other. A monster cannot have more than one copy of any particular debuff, but can have all 3. A Lore-master can only maintain one such lore skill, so to have all 3 on one monster will require 3 Lore-masters.
  
• Added a reset to the L15 Lore-master quest that will shut down the instance once the Goblin-champions arrive -- this should be a little more forgiving for those poor, undefeated Lore-masters who stumble into Benton Oakes's library, never suspecting that L30 goblins lurk just behind one of the walls.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Visual Fx for Test of Will that was preventing them from playing properly.
  
• Fixed several race conditions that were allowing the vfx of the Ent for the skill March of the Ents to remain occasionally.
  
• Fixed an issue with Wisdom of the Council for Elf Male & Female Lore-masters not delivering the effect until the end of the animation. They will now apply the effect when the staff hits the ground.

Guardian

• Associated fellowship skill "To the King's" knockdown will now last a full 7 seconds
  
• The trait "Improved Vexing Blow" now clearly indicates you can hit two additional targets
  
• The "Overwhelm" skill now properly describes that it can stun on a critical hit
  
• The "Stamp" skill will now fire off as soon as the previous attack animation finishes. Previously it would wait for the combat action delay to expire before firing.
  
• The "Shield-blow" skill will now properly apply the Taunt FX when used
  
• Shield Spike Durations have been increased
  
• Guardian's Pledge will no longer play a hit FX when used.

Hunter

The Hunter class had a significant amount of work done on it in Book 10. For a write-up on the changes, please see

Other changes:

• The Hunter class quest jewelry item "Earrings of Discovery" has had its melee critical chance changed to ranged critical chance.
  
• Hunter Traps will now appear properly when the Hunter has the Sturdy Trap trait equipped
  
• Hunters should no longer have arrows left in their hands after failed inductions
  
• Hunters will have fire and light arrows on their bows when using fire and light oil.
  
• Hunter animations were re-worked for bow and crossbows. They should feel faster and more responsive now.

Captain

The Captain class had a significant amount of work done on it in Book 10. For a write-up on the changes, please see

Minstrel

• The Minstrel can now initiate his "Noble Cause" skill more quickly--immediately after the previous skill completes!
  
• The minstrel's "Song of the Hopeful Heart" will more accurately convey the range of its aura to players.
  
• For players having trouble (very rarely) with the minstrel class quest ("A Song for the Company"), this is now fixed.

Burglar

• The Burglar's Counter Defence debuff no longer completely disables a target's avoidance chances. Instead, it applies a percentage reduction to avoidance chance. In most cases, this will amount to a complete negation of the target's avoidance chance. Still, like the change to Wound debuffs, it allows special buffs or circumstances to overcome the debuff.

Traits/Titles/Deeds

• Deed UI
  
  
  • The Deed Log will now properly remove deeds that are completed while Show Completed is unchecked and the Log is open.
    
  • Fixed a bug in the Deed Log which would prevent Destiny Rewards from being displayed.
    
  • Completed deeds which were selected now correctly leave your deed log.
  
  
• Dropping a trait into an incorrect slot type will not unslot an existing trait in that slot.
  
• Kills in Dwaling and Oatbarton will now count towards Shire Deeds
  
  
• Fixed Knowledge of the Past Deed so that it will advance properly when the Power and Wisdom trait is slotted.
  
• Slayer deeds of level 20+ will require less kills to complete.
  
  
• Renamed passive critical hit traits to reflect what type of attacks they buff.
  
• The descriptive tooltips of the racial skill buffs was improved. (No gameplay change.)
  
• Changed the 4 traits that give Hunter skills +ranged crit into generic +ranged crit.
  
• Increased the duration of the "Improved Beneath Notice" with the trait from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.
  
• Made "Beneath Notice" castable while moving.
  
  
• On your character journal's trait page, virtues now have all their ranks shown as boxes. These boxes are filled for ranks you have achieved. Each one has a tooltip for what the virtue does at that rank. Enchanted ranks are shown as green.
  
• Dragging traits around with a bard looks a little nicer.
  
  
• Any time a player accepts a Trait configuration change at a Bard, any items they are no longer allowed to equip as a result of the changes will be unequipped immediately.

Monster Play

Book 10 has plenty of changes for monster players, including new systems like keep defenses and being able to call powerful reinforcements. For an overview of all of the changes, please see Allan Maki's dev diary at

• You can now access monster play from the character selection screen once you have a character that has reached level 10.
  
• Monster players will now log back in where they logged out (instead of always logging in at their home base)
  
• In the monster play select UI, the Blackarrow and the Warleader now have different appearances.
  
• Maps rewarded for the different locations in monster play now have different locations and cooldown timers. All crude maps retain their 30 minute cooldown and share the same usage with each other. Poor maps now have a 15 minute timer and share the same usage restrictions as each other. All Good maps have individual usage restrictions and 5 minute usage timers.
  
• Monster guards at the resurrection circles throughout the Ettenmoors are now immune to fear.
  
• Gorgoris, Mazauk and Uzulthrang grew tired of the Free People storming through the Ettenmoors and have lowered their standards and requirements to enter the fray.
  
• The Krahjarn Felarrow guards assigned to protect the captured rally points of monster players are meant to be fearsome, not fearful. Now, they are immune to effects which make them run in fear.
  
• Dwarves and Goblins throughout the Ettenmoors now have a better chance of dropping Isendeep Ore.
  
• It was discovered that Free Peoples were stealing brittleaf seed from the Little Folk in Hoarhallow. You should be ashamed of yourselves, the Little Folk are your friends! Players will no longer be able to loot brittleleaf seeds.
  
• Gasham and Bok, the two leaders of the Snowreap Goblin tribe at Grothum have been eating their Wheaties!
  
• Tokens of Valour earned for the glory of the Free People now stack to 25. The items are still used in various quests and can also be used to obtain the keys for the reward chests at Glân Vraig.
  
• Map notes depicting the control of the important battle locations in the Ettenmoors now display dynamically at the correct locations.
  
• There are now three levels of reward chest available for players in Glân Vraig, each has a different appearance and an increasingly better chance at dropping top tier loot. These include raid and normal set pieces.
  
• Humanoids sworn to the service of the Free People or Angmar's Army will now drop Shattered Blades or Barrels of Oil more frequently. This is to augment new quests in the Ettenmoors.
  
• Guards located at the rally points controlled by the towers will now always spawn dependent on the correct player/monster player state.
  
• Orcs invading Gabilsathur as part of the raid event in that area will no longer drop loot.
  
• All quests involving the defeat of Captain-General or Tyrants now properly state that you must not be defeated when the Captain-General or Tyrant falls.
  
• The duration of the Orc Reaver's Sundering Blow armor debuff has increased from 15s -> 20s
  
• Monster players will see the correct ring for pending quests instead of the Player ring.

Crafting

TONS of changes to the crafting system! For a more nutshell view, please see this post on the LOTRO forums:

General

• Fixed the inscription name length to allow the full 32 characters, as per the edit box.
  
• The "Flawed Spider Eye" trophy drop was not flagged as a crafting component. This is now fixed.
  
• The "Skybreaker's Scale" trophy drop did not state in it' description that the item is used in crafting. This is now fixed.
  
• The woodworking recipe, "Campfire Materials Recipe" has been removed from the woodworking profession and added to the cooking profession. Any existing "Campfire Materials Recipe" scrolls will now grant the cooking recipe instead of the old woodworking recipe.
  
• One-shot recipe changes
  
  
  • New one-shot recipes are now in. The new recipes are identical to the existing one-shot recipes in every way, save one: the new recipes use different rare required ingredients than the old recipes.
    
  • Old one-shot recipes continue to exist, however they can no longer be found in treasure. Every one of the old rare required ingredients used in these old recipes can still be found on the creatures that have always dropped them. Players in possession of existing one-shot recipes and rare ingredients will find that nothing has changed with these items.
    
  • The new rare ingredients needed for the new one-shot recipes can be found on a variety of unique creatures (as opposed to just one named creature). Players should find that they have many more options available to them when looking for a specific rare ingredient.
    
  • The new rare ingredients have a 100% drop rate. This means that when you find a named creature that is known to drop a rare required ingredient, it will always drop that ingredient.
    
  • Added "(Old)" to the display names of previously existing one-shot (or one use) recipes to differentiate them from new one-shot recipes.
  
  

• Fixed a typo in the description of "Delicate White Tree Mould."
  
• All crafted instruments are now "Bind on Equip"
  
• When reading a recipe scroll, the character will no longer perform the "kneeling down" animation, and the induction bar will now state, "Reading..."
  
• Crafting recipes tied to quests that allow a profession to advance to the next tier were incorrectly displaying an amount of crafting experience to be rewarded upon successful execution. These crafting quest recipes should now properly display that they award no crafting experience.
  
• Changed Rich nodes to always give out at least 3 resources. Coal can now sometimes be found from rich nodes.
  
• Heavy Branches now have a chance of producing kindling material.
  
• Rich metal resources will always produce at least 3 ore with a maximum of 5. Heavy branches will always produce 3 branches with a maximum of 6.
  
• Level 13-17 bears and boars now drop medium hides. In fact, all monsters that drop hides should be dropping medium hides at those levels.
  
• Resources will no longer spawn in instances.
  
• Haudh Iarchith now has scholar resources.

Craft Tools

• "Inferior" crafting tools no longer apply penalties to critical chances or induction durations
  
• Tools sold by vendors are now different from other tools; tools produced by apprentice metalsmiths can no longer be purchased from vendors
  
• All tools produced by metalsmiths now add bonuses to critical chances and induction durations. In addition, non-critical success tools now have a sturdiness rating of "Normal," while critical success tools (Superior Tools) have a sturdiness rating of "Tough"
  
• Fixed tags for many crafting tools. Messages sent to the player regarding the tools should now use proper grammar.
  
• In an effort to increase the usefulness of crafted Farmer's Tools (and to reduce the amount of time farmers spend "watching the grass grow"), induction times for all Journeyman, Expert, Artisan, and Master farming recipes have been changed to match the induction times used by Apprentice farming recipes
  
• Fixed an issue with smithing hammers that was causing these tools to only increase the critical chances for Metalsmithing recipes. Smithing hammers now correctly increase the critical chances of both Metalsmithing and Weaponsmithing recipes.
  
• Craft tools have seen an adjustment to their structure points and durability. Vendor purchased tools and crafted non-crit tools now have 45 structure points (down from 60). However, these tools have greater durability (was brittle, now normal) and will not incur item-wear on every use. Crit versions of crafting tools have 60 structure points (unchanged) but greater durability (tough).

Skills

• The Track Mines, Track Wood, Track Crops, and Track Artifacts skills will remain active after summoning a mount.

Farming

• The farming vocation has been updated to allow the possibility of small profits when selling finished products back to a vendor. Only selling products created from fair plants will turn a profit, depending on the amount generated by the field. There is no profit in selling poor plants to vendors, yet they can be converted back into seeds.
  
• Pipe-weed seed recipes that award seeds which cannot be purchased from vendors will now produce a total of three seeds per recipe execution.
  
• All farming recipes that require the workbench were previously causing the player to use the "planting seeds" animation. These recipes now use a more appropriate animation.
  
• Reduced the quantity of "Fine Fertilizer" needed for tier 5 farming recipes to one.
  
• Fixed an issue with the sell value of "Bushel of Fair Blackberries."
  
• Adjusted the output of some pipe-weed seed recipes to produce three seeds instead of two.
  
• Reduced induction times for all recipes tiers 2 through 5 to match the induction times used in tier 1 recipes. All "field" recipes, regardless of tier, now have 20 second-long inductions. All other farming recipes, regardless of tier, now have 10 second-long inductions.
  
• Adjusted craft experience rewards for all farming recipes to compensate for the increased productivity and lower costs of farming
  
  
  • All 'seed' recipes award simple (4) craft experience.
    
  • All 'crop' recipes (recipes that produce useable pipe-weed or vegetables) award simple (4) craft experience.
    
  • All 'hybrid pipe-weed field' recipes award medium (8) craft experience.
    
  • All other 'field' recipes award low (6) craft experience.
    
  • All "field" recipes now have inductions lasting 20 seconds (Examples: Blueberry Field recipe, Southern Star Pipe-weed Field recipe)
    
  • All other recipes now have inductions lasting 10 seconds (Examples: Cabbage Seed recipe, Old Toby Seed recipe)
  
  
• The recipe "Cross-breed Wizard's Fire Field" was incorrectly using two "Earth of Erebor" as required ingredients. This has been changed to only require one.
  
• Winter Barley fields, Spring Barley fields, and Oat fields all now have a chance to produce a "Bushel of Straw."
  
• Some pipeweed seeds are now available to players via loot drops.
  
  
• Bushel of Fair Blackberries has been reduced in value to match that of other farming products.

Cooking

• The "Serene Stew" recipe was previously using ingredients not readily available to a Journeyman Cook. The required recipe ingredients have been changed to bring this recipe in line with other Journeyman-level recipes.
  
• Craft experience awarded for completion of recipes classified as "ingredients" has been reduced from 6 experience to 4 experience.
  
• All Artisan & Master Cooking recipes that previously required the oven facility effect now require the superior oven facility effect.
  
• All recipes that exclusively use ingredients sold by vendors have been changed to award 6 craft experience instead of 8 or 10.
  
• All beer and ale recipes have been changed to award 8 craft experience instead of 6.
  
• Slightly reduced the required ingredients for some recipes
  
• All Artisan & Master Cooking recipes that previously required the forge facility effect now require the superior forge facility effect.
  
• Minstrel Lute Strings now have an improvement with critical craft results.

Prospecting

• Fixed the display names for "Dwarf-iron Deposit," "Rich Dwarf-iron Deposit," "Barrow-iron Deposit," and "Rich Barrow-iron Deposit."

Woodworker

• Increased damage for the following tier 2 crafted spears to differentiate them from the tier 1 crafted spears: "Ash Spear," "Fine Ash Spear," "Heavy Ash Spear," and "Hardened Ash Spear."
  
• Craft experience awarded for completion of recipes classified as "components" has been reduced from 6 experience to 4 experience.
  
• All Artisan & Master Woodworking recipes that previously required the workbench facility effect now require the superior workbench facility effect.
  
• Slightly reduced the required ingredients for some woodworking recipes

Jeweller

• New recipes have arrived! Jewellers will find that, in addition to some auto-granted recipes, Jeweller trainers are now selling new bracelet and earring recipes. Even better, improved versions of many of these recipes can also be found throughout treasure.
  
• Jeweller trainer now sells some new recipes for crafting bracelets and earrings.
  
• New jeweller recipes can now be obtained from loot.
  
• Craft experience awarded for completion of recipes classified as "gemstones" has been reduced from 6 experience to 4 experience.
  
• All Artisan & Master Jeweller recipes that previously required the workbench
  
• 
  facility effect now require the superior workbench facility effect.
  
• Slightly reduced the required ingredients for some Artisan and Master Jeweller recipes.

Metalworker

• Significantly reduced the required ingredients for many Metalworking recipes.
  
• Craft experience awarded for completion of recipes classified as "components" has been reduced from 6 experience to 4 experience.
  
• Expert metalsmith vendors were missing two shield recipes from their inventories, making these recipes unavailable to players. Both the Westernesse Shield recipe and the Ancient Steel Shield recipe can now be found on expert metalsmith vendors.
  
• "Light Westernesse Shield" and "Superb Light Westernesse Shield" are tier 4 light shields that had heavy shield armour values. The shields now have the correct armour for their type.
  
• Solid Light Bronze Buckler now has the stats of a rare item.

Weaponsmith

• New trap recipes have arrived! A variety of new traps can now be crafted by Weaponsmiths for the Hunter class.
  
• "Multi-trap" recipes and trap items have been renamed. "Multi-trap (2 traps)" has been changed to "Double-trap," and "Multi-trap (3 traps)" has been changed to "Triple-trap."
  
• Required ingredients for all trap recipes have been been reduced slightly. Crafting experience rewards for these recipes were reduced to bring them inline with this change.
  
• Craft experience awarded for completion of recipes classified as "components" has been reduced from 6 experience to 4 experience.
  
• All Artisan & Master Weaponsmith recipes that previously required the forge facility effect now require the superior forge facility effect.
  
• "Hunter Trap" recipes have been rebalanced to require less ingredients. These recipes now award 4 craft experience.
  
• Slightly reduced the required ingredients for some weaponsmith recipes.

Scholar

• Scholars now have the ability to track scholar resource nodes! The trait / skill "Track Ruins" is now a part of the Scholar profession. Similar to the other tracking skills, Track Ruins is a toggle skill that allows all scholars the ability to locate scholar resources on the mini-map.
  
• Craft experience awarded for all "Battle Lore" recipes has been increased from 8 to 10.
  
• All Artisan & Master Scholar recipes that previously did not require a facility effect now require the superior study facility effect (with the exception of Dye recipes).
  
• All "Dye" recipes now require 1 rare dye component instead of 3.
  
• Craft experience awarded for all "Dye" recipes has been decreased from 10 to 6.
  
• Slightly reduced the required ingredients for many Scholar recipes.
  
• New Bow Chant recipes are now available! The new recipes allow scholars to craft chants that enhance a hunter's abilities with bows.
  
• Bow Chant recipes are now available via loot drops.
  
• Required ingredients for all Hunter Oil recipes have been reduced slightly.
  Crafting experience rewards for these recipes have also been reduced to bring them inline with this change.
  
• Made the following changes to the scholar fire and light oil recipes:
  
  
  • Fire Oil Recipe: Normal success produces 4 Fire-oils; critical success produces 7 Fire-oils
    
  • Refined Fire Oil Recipe: Normal success produces 4 Refined Fire-oils; critical success produces 7 Refined Fire-oils
    
  • Light Oil Recipe: Normal success produces 4 Light-oils; critical success produces 7 Light-oils
    
  • Refined Light Oil Recipe: Normal success produces 4 Refined Light-oils; critical success produces 7 Refined Light-oils
  
  
• Battle Lore and Warding Lore scrolls have been updated in a very minor way - cooldown times on the scrolls are now equal to the length of the effect. Effect duration is now either 20 minutes or 30 minutes, not 21 and 31 minutes.

Tailor

• Craft experience awarded for completion of recipes classified as "components" has been reduced from 6 experience to 4 experience.
  
• Tailors now sell recipes for crafting cloaks
  
• All Artisan & Master Tailor recipes that previously required the workbench facility effect now require the superior workbench facility effect.
  
• Significantly reduced the required ingredients for many Tailor recipes.
  
• Updated graphical appearances for all cloaks produced by one-shot recipes.
  
• Loose Explorer's Cloak and Pliant Explorer's Cloak have seen a bonus added to them, making these two items different from other cloaks at this tier
  
• Some tier 5 light armour items are using different appearances now. The stats on these items have not been adjusted.
  
  
  • "Radiant Gloves"
    
  • "Radiant Armour"
    
  • "Radiant Leggings"
    
  • "Radiant Shoes"
    
  • "Radiant Shoulder Guards"
    
  • "Fine Radiant Gloves"
    
  • "Fine Radiant Armour"
    
  • "Fine Radiant Leggings"
    
  • "Fine Radiant Shoes"
    
  • "Fine Radiant Shoulder Guards"
    
  • "Superb Radiant Gloves"
    
  • "Superb Radiant Armour"
    
  • "Superb Radiant Leggings"
    
  • "Superb Radiant Shoes"
    
  • "Superb Radiant Shoulder Guards"
    
  • "Exquisite Radiant Gloves"
    
  • "Exquisite Radiant Armour"
    
  • "Exquisite Radiant Leggings"
    
  • "Exquisite Radiant Shoes"
    
  • "Exquisite Radiant Shoulder Guards"
  
  

Items

• All crafted weapons, armour, jewelry and shields have had their item levels increased, but have NOT had their required usage levels increased.
  
• Updated the "Graven Rune" trophy item. Description now states the item has no apparent use, and changed item's background icon to a normal trophy item icon background.
  
• Some class items, such as Burglar Tools, Lore-master Books, Captain Armaments, and Champion Runes, cost less to repair.
  
• Fixed an error in the description found on the "Manadgam" ring.
  
• Renamed corpse candle trophies to "Limrafn" trophies.
  
• The quest item Túrthann got a small upgrade.
  
• The quest item Wheatley's Shoulder Pads got a small upgrade.
  
• A few pieces of jewelry had repeat names. They were changed to:
  
  
  • Bracelets: Torinn - Torchun / Rodgor - Brogechor
    
  • Rings: Beleglos - Belegor / Estellos - Estelchor / Amarthlos - Amarthgor / Gollos - Golchor
    
  • Necklaces: Laemír - Ithilúr
  
  
• Updated some treasure icons.
  
• Dragon-Tooth Shard now has proper description.
  
• The Epic Class set armors have been increased in power.
  
• Edhelharn Tokens are now stackable in groups of 5.
  
• Fixed a naming problem with a Wight trophy which was leading to some confusion. The name was identical to one used in crafting. The non-crafting version has been renamed.
  
• Glass of Aglaral is now on its own cooldown channel and won't block the usage of the Edhelharn Tokens.
  
• Cooldowns for the Glass of Aglaral and Edhelharn Tokens will now expire in real-time instead of only during game time.
  
• Renamed two rings and two armbands found in the Great Barrows.
  
• Moonstone Ring and Sunstone Ring have been increased in power.
  
• The quest drop Heart-stone has been properly named Stone-heart
  
• The Icon for the Shield-brother quest ring has been updated to reflect the item description.

Armour

• Shield "Wall of Annuminas" is now bind on equip
  
• Cloak of Lothlórien has a small bonus to fate now.
  
• Hooded Cloak of the Mountains has a small bonus to will now.
  
• Non-hooded Cloak of the Steward now has a bonus to vitality.
  
• Hooded Cloak of the Steward now has a bonus to will.
  
• Hooded Cloak of Moonlight now has a bonus to stealth. Non-hooded version has a bonus vitality now.
  
• Hooded Cloak of the Shire now has a bonus to stealth. Non-hooded version now has a bonus to vitality.
  
• Hooded Cloak of the Rangers now has a bonus to stealth.
  
• Hooded Cloak of Shadows now has a bonus to stealth. It's also using a new appearance
  
• Some cloaks were not using the correct icon and have been corrected.
  
• "Robe of Lothlórien" is not a Burglar-only item now and has seen a slight buff.
  
• Decreased stats on the Gondorian Kite Shield and the Fine Gondorian Kite Shield (they were previously using level 33 shield stats).
  
• Decreased level requirements and stats on the Heavy Steel Round Shield and the Hardened Heavy Steel Round Shield (they were previously set to level 27 requirement while using level 26 shield stats).
  
• Increased level requirements and decreased stats on the Light Gondorian Kite shield and the Solid Light Gondorian Kite Shield (they were previously set to level 23 requirement while using level 33 shield stats).
  
• Robe "Gwatham" has been changed: Stealth bonus replaced with a bonus to Vitality and a small bonus to Agility. The robe can now be used to give the user a bonus to stealth but during this time the user cannot move.

Weapons

• The Weaponsmiths of Middle-earth have learned a lot about axe crafting in recent months. Better balancing means you will no longer suffer a small penalty to your chance to hit when using them.
  
• Armour Rending effects from axes are no longer permanent on the target
  
• Slayer weapons will now properly glow while sheathed and will maintain their glow as they are unsheathed or sheathed around monsters of their slayer type.
  
• The intrinsic stun effect has been removed from clubs and hammers (but remains on maces). Clubs now have a small chance of increasing the target's attack duration. Hammers have a small chance of decreasing the target's evasion chance. This change was made because stun effects were extremely prevalent (from weapons) and this was interfering with gameplay for some classes (particularly Burglars, Lore-masters, and Guardians). Stuns always trigger the combat state immunity which is a 10 second period during which the target cannot be stunned, knocked down, etc. When random stuns are being applied to targets this can directly interfere with a player's ability to execute some skills or conduct crowd control. Maces will continue to stun targets and every class, except the Lore-master, has access to these.
  
• "Spider-biter's" invokable ability is now better.
  
• Some bows that had a critical hit chance only gave that bonus during melee. The bonus is now only for ranged attacks.
  
• Some 2-handed weapons will now have +1 to the attribute bonuses on them. This was added to smooth out the bonus curves.
  
• Brownlock's Knife, the Burglar level 30 dagger, can now be dual-wielded.
  
• Updated the Drums Instruments to now do more damage, but cost more power.

User Interface


New/Changed Options

• There is a new 'Try On' button in the vendor 'buy' dialog screen. Pressing the button will equip the item for the avatar in the dressing room ("Does this make my butt look fat?).
  
• You can now disable the Dread/Hope FX! The option is "Enable Dread Effects" located in the "Special Effects Options" section of the "UI Settings" option tab.
  
• Added a new UI option, "Floating Text Always On Top" that will force floating labels for characters to always draw on top of 3D objects (Legacy behavior.)
  
• Added a new UI option, "Floating Text Size" that allows you to change the size of text that appears above characters and objects.
  
• There is now a way to select your tracked mob and the tracked mobs of the hunters in your fellowship (if they have the trait active). See the Key Bindings option page and look for Select Next Tracked and Select Previous Tracked
  
• Added a Reputation panel to the Character UI.
  
• The Dressing Room key mapping is now under the Panels section.
  
• You can now click anywhere on a raid member's pet vitals to select that pet.
  
• The ESC key now properly closes text item windows when reading notes and such.
  
• There's no longer a re-bindable key mapping for "Drop Camera," which wasn't usable anyway.
  
• Added a new bindable input action for the fellowship maneuver assist button.
  
• Now the fellowship maneuver UI buttons can be fully mapped, so no more mouse clicks!
  
• Added a new Combat Option so you can disable skill buttons being used to target nearest enemy if you do not have a selection when pressed.
  
• The key binding for Item Sell Locking is set to (Ctrl+T) by default now
  
• Added new key bindings for assisting individual Fellowship members. These default to SHIFT+F2 through SHIFT+F6.
  
• Vault bags do not automatically show themselves when the vault is opened. You can open all vault bags by pressing the "I" button (default)

UI Skinning

• There are a whole ton of new art assets that can be skinned! See the updated UISkinArtPack.zip (available on lotro.com after August 20) for samples!
  
• Fixed the bug where you had to replace one image in order to get image repositioning to work.
  
• There are two new keywords in the SkinDefinition.xml file that you can use to identify the origin that an element should scale from. These new keywords are ScaleOriginX and ScaleOriginY.

Tooltips

• Added door examination tooltips.
  
• Items requiring a Rank 1 rating now show that in their tooltips.
  
• Tooltips now show consumable items.
  
• Items once again show if they are able to be destroyed in their tooltips.
  
• Critical success crafted weapons now show the crafter's inscription in tooltips.
  
• Tooltips for items which grant traits now also show a tooltip for the granted trait.
  
• Barter and Reputation items will show themselves as such in tooltips.
  
• English only: Many tooltip description strings have been updated to be more succinct.

Targeting

• The ;target alias should now work properly. This alias is replaced by the selected target's name.
  
• Raid/Fellowship leaders trying to target mark entities should no longer have trouble when the menu hides behind the main one.
  
• No longer can you have the target marks overlap on a marked entity

Info

• The fellow/raid mini vitals will now display "defeated" over the vitals when a fellow member is incapacitated.
  
• The G15 keyboard LCD's morale and power values are now consistent with what's shown on the UI.
  
• Better text feedback will be provided when an NPC dies due to a scripted event.
  
• Inspecting another player will inform you of his/her race (human, elf, etc.)
  
• The vital bars (morale and power) of a fellow's pet now decrease from the right, like all fellow's vitals.
  
• You can now see a Summoned Oath Breaker's vitals when selected.
  
• The text of your maximum morale now correctly reflects any dread you may have.
  
• Reinforcements summoned by mobs now show vitals when selected.
  
• The value shown when examining stacks of items now reflects the total value of the stack instead of the value of an individual item.
  
• Show Surname and Show Rank options are now grouped under the Floating Information section.

Other

• If you right-click while dismounting or /following, you'll no longer lose your ability to mouselook.
  
• Fixed the help-string for the '/shortcut' command
  
• Fixed a bug where the stack indicator in the vendor panel stays visible if you shut the vendor UI with Shift held down.
  
• Increased response time for Kinship UI when toggling online/offline option.
  
• Items will dye while equipped - no need to un-equip then re-equip.
  
• You'll get an error if you try to dye an item with the same color the item already is.
  
• The various UIs involving skills, perks and traits are all more consistent, both in looks and behaviors.
  
• The out of range icon will no longer remain behind in the skill queue display.
  
• Cooldown timers now show always show seconds when the time remaining is less than 1 hour.
  
• Fixed a bug which when dragging quickslots left an empty hole behind.
  
• If you hide your UI with F12, it will now stay hidden after going through a doorway.
  
• No more "not while swimming" error messages while trying to play music while jumping.
  
• No more "General Error" when using /stuck sometimes.
  
• Fixed a problem where you could occasionally be unable to cancel an action by clicking on the progress bar.
  
• You'll no longer get the background, shadow or blue glow of one icon on top of another.
  
• The progress bar is no longer stuck "on" when you reposition it while active.
  
• Fixed a little graphics issue with the quest reward displays.
  
• Mouse scroll wheel now works correctly in the reputation page of your character journal.
  
• Better errors given for weird client problems we hope you never see. (ed. note: Left this in ‘cause it was kinda funny. -Patience)
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing the melee effectiveness field in the character journal to be empty sometimes if you logged in while wielding a shield in your off-hand.
  
• Reduced the chances of attacking a defeated foe with a skill that was already initiated and progressing through the induction/warm-up timer, e.g. the Hunter's "Swift Bow" skill.
  
• Fixed a problem with Context Menus not showing up for fellowship members.
  
• Floating text labels have been improved. In general, they're smaller on distant objects and interact with 3D scenery more appropriately. Also, they now scale properly with your resolution settings.
  
• Fixed a bug which would cause option values on sliders to not be saved between logins.
  
• If you used the /alias command to bind an alias to a quickslot, it would place it one past the specified position. This has been fixed.
  
• You will no longer see the blue mouse rollover image on items when dragging them.
  
• Fixed a bug where you could delete all the text from the various tabs in the game. Note that this would only affect your client, and would reset if you logged out.
  
• /who should work as expected now
  
• Players can remove the "New Overlay" more clearly when they hover over the skill icon in the skill tree.
  
• Fixed the sorting problem with some categories of fellowship maneuvers.

Kinships

• Kinship updates: Added a 4th member rank called "Recruit". When you are initially invited into a kinship this is the rank you will be given. This rank has no titles and can only chat with the kinship (cannot use Kinship Auctions).
  
• The Kinship UI has been reorganized. There is a checkbox that allows you to see Online Members only. This is on by default.
  
• Kinship Members can now add a Player Note on the Kinship Page for themselves. These notes can be viewed by all members of the Kinship by pressing the "Change View" button.
  
• More Kinship Lifespan Ranks have been added. When viewing the Next Kinship Rank, you now see how long until that Rank will be reached.

Chat/Social

• By popular demand, increased the maximum size of the chat window from 768x512 to 1024x1024. Note that the larger your chat window, the more video memory it will use!
  
• Dialogs, loot windows and other popup windows will no longer steal focus from a text element. For example, if you're typing in the chat window
  when a fellowship request comes in, and you keep typing, you'll still be chatting - not canceling the request and popping up a dozen windows. Yay!
  
• Page up and page down keys no longer scroll the chat window twice per press.
  
• You can once again turn your chat window completely transparent.
  
• The Friends list should no longer show ??? for the area of a logged out player

Emotes

• Travel and mounting is blocked during some emotes (sitting for example).
  
• Emotes are now blocked while crafting.
  
• Added over 40 new emotes! Many of these new emotes commands are text only and do not have associated animations:
  
  
  • agree
    
  • lol
    
  • nothing
    
  • attack
    
  • charge
    
  • fight
    
  • ready
    
  • think
    
  • bother
    
  • tear
    
  • story
    
  • brb
    
  • ahem
    
  • mumble
    
  • clap
    
  • wink
    
  • assist
    
  • stare
    
  • sorry
    
  • calm
    
  • blush
    
  • burp
    
  • stretch
    
  • rest
    
  • oop (Out Of Power)
    
  • poke
    
  • hug
    
  • pat
    
  • wait
    
  • drool
    
  • sweat
    
  • followme
    
  • giggle
    
  • yawn
    
  • wince
    
  • shiver
    
  • congratulate
    
  • curtsey
    
  • grumble
    
  • innocent
    
  • whistle
    
  • fidget
    
  • slap
  
  

World

• Evendim now has birds!
  
• Various floating objects around the world have been grounded, various texture seams cleaned up, and various stuck locations fixed.
  
• The Decayed of Imlad Balchorth are now more common.
  
• The Superior Workbench that was hanging out beneath the ground at the farms north of Hobbiton has been removed.
  
• The herd of Deer kept within Tornstones in the Lone-lands should no longer flee when approached. Gone are the legions of northward facing Deer outside of Ost Guruth.
  
• Gath Forthnir now has a Milestone.
  
• Imlad Balchorth, Himbar and Nan Gurth are now serviced by a new rally point.
  
• Players who suffer defeat in Tyrn Fornech should now appear at the Parth Aduial Rally Point upon release.
  
• Players should no longer get stuck in an inescapable pit in the Gates of Carn Dum instance.
  
• Upon defeat in Himbar, Imlad Balchorth and Nan Gurth, players will now rally to a new rally point in northeastern Angmar.
  
• All public dungeons in Angmar now use normal landscape regeneration rates.
  
• Deer, rabbits, and other critters would run Northward to escape the Eye of Sauron. They have recently discovered Angmar, which scares the little guys just as much as Sauron. Knowing that there is no safe place to run, they'll flee in any direction in a panic.

Town services

• Captain trainers now sell banners of war, victory, and hope.
  
• Removed carrots and mushrooms from being sold at grocers and suppliers. These items should be provided to players only by farmers.

Travel/Maps/Radar

• The Evendim map has been updated for accuracy.
  
• More map note kinds are visible in the more distant maps. For instance, Bree-land and The Shire maps now show most every map note type. Look at the filter and see for yourself!
  
• You now have to mouse over a map note's image, not just its bounding box, to get a tooltip.
  
• No more map notes poking through the map's Fog of War in areas you haven't yet discovered.

Music System

• Other players will no longer see music system errors when you're teleported while playing.

Adoptions/Notary System/Bios

• Monster Players and Players are no longer allowed to adopt each other - There will be no coercing with the enemy!
  
• There is now a 'notary' NPC available for monster players in the Ettenmoors.

Auctions

• Dealt a telling blow to Sauron's auction pilfering operation! (AKA - Fixed a bug in the Auction System which would occasionally consume an item and send out "Sauron stole my l00t" letters.)
  
• Auction UI: It is no longer possible to enter non-alpha characters into the Name Search field.
  
• Auction UI: The Item Name field will now start a search when the enter key is pressed inside of it.
  
• Auction UI: When bidding on an Auction - if the bid price reaches the buyout price, the Auction UI will treat the bid as a buyout instead of prompting the user to hit the buyout button.
  
• The Auction UI will now keep around a record of recently posted items! When a player posts an item, and then drags the same item again into the Auction UI again, the UI will automatically populate itself with the last values used for that item. Handy for Crafters!
  
• Fixed a bug in the Auction UI's Duration Sorter. The sort was using the Auction's Duration, not the Auction's Time Remaining! This would cause strangeness, such as 1 hour remaining being displayed as greater than 1 day remaining. All better now.
  
• The Auction UI was displaying the wrong required level for items. This has been corrected.
  
• Fixed a bug in the Auction UI which would cause the buyout price to be deleted.
  
• Updated the Auction UI to better limit the amount of numbers entered into a currency field. You can now only enter two copper digits, and three silver digits.
  
• The Auction UI will now properly clear the buyout fields when an item is dragged out of the post slot.
  
• Auction hall money displays now show all denominations except for leading zero ones. For example: "1g 0s 100c", or "5s 0c", or "41c", etc.
  
• You can now right-click a mail message to open it.

Mail

• After hitting the "Reply" button, the newly opened window will have focus on the "Body" field instead of the "To" field.

Graphics/Animation/FX

• Fixes 'stutter-step' issues when NPCs and monsters stop moving.
  
• "Find the Trail" effects will no longer disappear after teleporting.
  
• New visual effect for when you bind to a milestone.
  
• Sleeping monsters that are killed in one hit no longer continue to play the sleeping ZZZZZ particles.
  
• Weapons that are equipped while you are stealthed and out of combat now properly unstealth with you.
  
• Monsters now have weapon streaks on their attacks.
  
  
  • These streaks will be disabled when monster combat FX are disabled in options.
    
  • Disabling Avatar combat FX will now also disable streaks for avatars.
  
  
• The Slayer FX appear much more quickly now than they used to when a target creature type is nearby
  
• Fixed a race condition that was causing other players' weapons to show up unsheathed and in hand while out of combat.
  
• Some FX that included gore were not playing at all after the addition of the FX toggles, these will now toggle on/off correctly
  
• Certain FX were not playing even when the gameplay option to show them was enabled, this have been fixed.
  
• Fixed a number of animation glitches that occurred when playing a skill after an auto-attack
  
• The Blue (Tactics) Fellowship Maneuvers animation will no longer hitch between the pose hold and the actual attack
  
• In the quest "Knocking Heads," the stone throwing animation will now play correctly
  
• Certain FX were not playing even when the gameplay option to show them was enabled, this has been fixed.
  
• Avatars will now sync up properly with their mounts after teleporting while on a travel route.
  
• Fixed an issue with walk-strafing while carrying a bucket not animating properly.
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing Hobbit instruments to appear at the wrong scale.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Bear's combat FX that was letting them play even when toggled off.
  
• Certain walls in the Great Barrow Instance would appear whole again if they unloaded and then reloaded on the client. They will now remain in their broken state.
  
• Fixed issues with Female Bandit death animations
  
• The Giant Arifael will no longer slide when moving
  
• Fixed an issue with certain Hobbit Chairs disappearing when players attempt to sit in them.
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing death animations to occasionally show the monster as standing for a brief moment.
  
• Lore-master FX fixes
  
  
  
  • Fixed an issue with the Visual FX for "Test of Will" that was preventing them from playing properly.
    
  • Fixed some conditions that were allowing the FX of the Ent for the skill "March of the Ents" to occasionally remain.
    
  • Fixed an issue with "Wisdom of the Council" for Elf Lore-masters not delivering the effect until the end of the animation. They will now apply the effect when the staff hits the ground.
  
  
• Fixed an animation issue that was causing the Elf Female to drop her arms during archery attacks.
  
• Burglars and wargs will no longer swim faster when stealthed. They now swim at the intended speed.
  
• Players will no longer get a frame hitch when going to stealth while in motion.
  
• Players' weapons should now disappear when crafting, playing music, and when doing most emotes. Some emotes will still show the weapons when appropriate.
  
• The Firefly will now stop glowing when it dies.
  
• Hit FX will only play on hits and criticals and will no longer incorrectly play on misses.
  
• The obelisk for "Fire and Ice" quest can now be more easily selected
  
• The Champion's horn item will now play the right FX when used.
  
• Water will now splash when you jump into it! CAAANNONBAAALLL!
  
• Giants should now throw rocks without a hitch in the animation.
  
• Warcry now has a shorter animation.
  
• Toned down the hit FX on Tale of Heroism.
  
• Added New Darkwater Auras.
  
• Celondim guards will no longer be super shiny with specular lighting.
  
• Users will no longer clip through Gimli's door in the Silverdeep mine.
  
• Avatar animations now blend better while jumping in various directions

Audio

• You should no longer hear multiple Voiceover scripts when in an instance.
  
• Added ambient sound to Rivendell Valley.

Miscellaneous

• Darkwater Monsters are now lootable when killed while knocked down
  
• Fixes an occasional client crash that can occur in The Great Barrow.
  
• Fixed a few bugs that might leave players stuck at a loading screen (we're not saying it can't still happen, but it won't happen from these!).
  
• The stew pot in the Evendim giant camp will no longer disappear when used.
  
• /servertime now properly reports the localtime of the server
  
• If you have multiple quests that require you to carry an item (pie, mail, eggs) you will now pick up the correct item instead of a random item.

Quests

General

• Players can now use the quest NPC to join their fellowship in a private encounter once they accept all available quests from the NPC. For example, if someone in your fellowship has started the Weathertop Instance but you have not done any of the quests, once you accept the first quest from Candaith, you will get the option to enter the Weathertop Instance with your fellowship.
  
• We have reduced the retry timer on starting a quest you have cancelled from 20 minutes to 5 minutes.
  
• Many generic crate icons have been replaced with real icons for high-level Class Quests
  
• Added the number of the Epic Book to the first chapter of each, so when you start a new Book you can tell which one you're starting.
  
• Fixed Quest Tracker menu choice to find others on quest. It wasn't always opening the UI to the correct tab.
  
• Fixed an issue with NPCs that were showing the pending quest ring and displaying a list of pending quests that had an invalid retry time.
  
• Fixed the issue with carrying objects (mail, pie, buckets) and with riding a horse that would randomly cause you to drop the object or be removed from your horse for no apparent reason. This was most commonly seen when doing the Horse Quests.
  
• When repairing the breaches on Trestlebridge for Jeweller, Tailor and Woodworker quests, you will once again see the repaired breaches.
  
• The Summer Festival quests won't be cluttering up your quest logs anymore. Don't worry, they'll be back again next year!

Specific Quests:

• Players will no longer be knocked off their mount after the first hit in the "Fresh Steeds" quest arc
  
• The phial of water needed for the "Reclaim the Lost Maiden" quest is now collected by Dannasen at the end of the quest. This change has caused the quest to be versioned and it will be removed from your log if you had it underway.
  
• We've addressed a few issues with the "A Blade for a Life" escort quest so that it should work more reliably now.
  
• Book 9 Chapter 8 has a new purple ring as a selectable reward. This replaces the yellow leggings.
  
• Moved the quests "A Sister's Love" and "Vessel of Purity" into the Garth Agarwen quest category.
  
• Players can no longer light the braziers in Fornost without starting the boss fight.
  
• The Rangers in Amarthiel's Hope are no longer scared and will keep fighting instead of stopping.
  
• Sharkey's Lieutenant in Andrath just got some friends to help him.
  
• "A Guardian's Duty" - Updated quest description to reduce redundant redundancy
  
• "Inspire Postman Oddfoot" - Did you do the mail quests out of order, and now can't find the rest of them? Now Postman Oddfoot has some comments to get you back on track!
  
• New and improved directions to Merilos for "The Call of Precious Things, Part IV:" She's not just in Rivendell, she's at the Spire of Meeting, west of the House of Elrond. Whoops, spoiler!
  
• You want to know where Barad Tharsir is? It's on the far side of the Brandywine from where you get the relevant quests, and now they'll tell
  you so.
  
• People were really bummed in Rivendell, sometimes. Now they shouldn't be so depressing, even the Bowyer who was always going on with 'Oh, woe is me!' and 'It's terrible, just terrible!' -- brought to you by the 'Rivendell Is A Happy Place!(tm)' tourism bureau. Contact Lord Elrond for free tickets to an Elf Champions game.
  
• Dwalin has had his eyes checked, and will no longer call you a dwarf despite any evidence to the contrary, when you talk to him for "Dwalin's Bad Day."
  
• When you search the satchel for "A Path to Learning, Part Two," you'll now get a notification that you found something.
  
• "A True Friend to Holly Hornblower" has been versioned to help fix the problem with its recipe reward.
  
• Frodo now properly has the level of Dread he's supposed to in everyone's favourite "Supply Your Own Captions" quest.
  
• "The Bounty Hunter" is now available! If you've completed all of the Ost Forod bounties, speak with Basil Gummidge for the opportunity to pick up the missing piece of the Panthavron set.
  
• Placed the wanted posters in Ost Forod on noticeboards so they'll be easier to see.
  
• Remember the giant statue of Elendil that you carried in your back pocket while swimming across Lake Nenuial? It's now a little less ridiculously large.
  
• Frustrated by Humfrey Rumming's Amazing One-Use Cellar Key? Well, worry no more! Now the Cellar Key can be used an infinite number of times, or at least until he asks for it back.
  
• Removed duplicate billboards in "The Quarry in Scary" and "Articles of Harmony"
  
• Fixed stringtable error in "An Axe to Grind"
  
• No more deja vu! You should now only see Athal once. You should now only see Athal once. (ed. note. MadeOfLions, that was too easy! You should be ashamed. You should be ashamed. -Patience)
  
• Added a failsafe to the Tomb of Elendil -- if Crackskull glitches and dies before he wakes up Nornagol, wait for a minute or two and Nornagol should wake up on her own.
  
• You asked, and we listened -- Class Quest trophies from Carn Dum and Urugarth are now a 100% drop from the appropriate bosses.
  
• "The Scent of Mithril" has been updated in order to fix a problem where you could get into a state from which the quest could never be completed. To receive the quest again, you will need to return to Bothwar in Gabilshathur.
  
• "Banishing the Darkness" - if you summon the Spirit Deluches and fail to destroy it, it will re-spawn when you approach the place he was summoned again.
  
• Book 9, Chapter 1 is now bestowed by Gandalf since the players are at Rivendell (not Gath Forthnír) at the end of Book 8, and are sent to Golodir in Angmar.
  
• Book 1 Chapter 11 will no longer send defeated players to West Bree; instead they will revive outside of Tom Bombadil's house.
  
• Fixed a problem with some fellowship members unable to enter "The Hideout" and "Broken Alliance"
  
• The Mountain Basil for "A Taste of Skill, Part II" will glow once again.
  
• The quest "Treasures from the Fields" has had minor bug fixes
  
• Added fixed spawns of snapper turtles for the quest "Snapper Soup"
  
• Added color to monsters in "Formal Complaint" instance
  
• Fixed an issue with the quest arc "Brotherly Bonds." Some of the quests have been updated and will be removed from players' quest logs if they have not been fully completed. Players should talk to the quest bestower to obtain the quest again.
  
• Constable Bolger will now run home after his combat ends
  
• The "Fresh Steeds" quests will no longer fail on logout when not mounted.
  
• NPC Hithlim has had his title changed to more accurately reflect his goods.
  
• Fixed the walking animation for the innkeeper in the Golden Perch.
  
• Added a reset to the boss encounter in Epic Book 1 Chapter 11.

Carn Dûm

• We have slightly modified the Epic story:
  
  
  • You no longer have to progress through all of Carn Dûm to meet up with Golodir in Book 8 - Chapter 5. Instead, speaking with Golodir will send you into a brand new private instance where you and Golodir encounter Mordirith.
    
  • The quest rewards for Book 8 - Chapter 5 have not changed. Mordirith's unique loot rewards are not available from completing this instance. This new instance was introduced for players who want to complete Book 8 without going through all of Carn Dûm.
    
  • Players who have already completed the Book 8 - Chapter 5 quest will be able to help those who have not. Once they have completed it, they can replay the instance later through the Aughaire Reflecting Pool. The changes to this quest required us to version the quest, meaning if you have it underway, it will be removed from your journal. If you currently have Book 8 - Chapter 5 underway and have defeated Mordirth, you will want to turn it in before the update goes live on August 20.
    
  • Book 9 now depends on Book 8 being completed. (This was originally our intent, but since Book 8 was difficult to complete, we changed this requirement to having completed Book 7.)
  
  
• Mordirith has been practicing some new tricks and since he no longer has to waste time on that silly Ranger, Golodir, he has decided to practice the skills on you, the player!
  
• We've revised the Helchgam fight in Carn Dûm to address some of the issues reported with the fallen pillars not being solid and therefore useless. The only noticeable change will be that you can no longer walk in front of a pillar prior to it falling. After the pillar has fallen, you should be able to cross it as would be expected.
  
• If you still encounter a problem with the fallen pillar not being solid, move completely away from the fallen pillar and then try to step on it again.
  
• We've also tried to address some of the pet pathing issues in this room, but it is recommended you keep your pet in a non-aggressive stance while in this room. Otherwise they may still take a flying leap into the water surrounding Helchgam.
  
• Under certain circumstances Forvengwath could fail to reappear - this has been addressed.
  
• The Castellan's chest in Barad Gularan will no longer lock after it has been unlocked once.
  
• The castellan's chest in Barad Gúlaran no longer despawns on loot. You will now be able to obtain the key if the chest closes after being opened.

Helegrod

• This is a special note to all those who have claimed to kill Mr. Thorog. Thorog and Turbine have been talking and he doesn't like the fact that
  you all think that he is too easy. In fact he complained that he had been keeping his true power back for those that he deemed worthy. Rather than go up to his turret and heal like he was originally planning on doing, he had decided to mock and point. Now that the cries have been heard, he has decided otherwise. Let the pain begin. And for those who proudly wear the titles and claim victory, know that in his heart of hearts, Mr. Thorog has thrown down the gauntlet. No more Mr. Nice Dragon! Beware the wrath of the dragon in his original intended state.
  
• Helegrod Epic Sets are now equally shared amongst the Raid and Landscape. All pieces will drop on high level monsters at a very low rate. They will drop in the instance as well, at a much higher rate off of each of the four major bosses. Thanks, Thorog!
  
• All Epic Set pieces will only bind when equipped now.
  
• All Epic Set pieces have gotten a major stat pass.
  
• The Pedestals in Helegrod now simply can be used if the correct Stage has been passed. No longer do players need to do any quests or use any keys. (Ex. if the players kill Zaudru, they can use the Ring Pedestal, if not, they can't!) If you had one of these items in your inventory, it will be removed when you log into Book 10.

Month of the Captain

Overview
Welcome to the Month of the Captain. Here’s an overview and a few details of what’s new for the #1 buff class -- our very own Swiss army knife of the battlefield.

Standards
Heralds?! Why Heralds? Well, to be perfectly honest, we like Heralds, and we know that a lot of you do as well. However, with that said, we also understand that some of you had envisioned the Captain as a non-pet class. So we’ve decided to give you a choice.

Beginning at level 20, Captains will now have access to Banner Standards. Basic Standards will be sold by your Trainer, and more advanced versions can be crafted by Tailors.

Equipping these Standards will give you a number of stat bonuses. Once they’ve been equipped, using them will allow you to place a Banner on the ground in front of you. This Banner will give the same type of buff that your Herald would normally provide to everyone in your fellowship, but there is one caveat.

If you have a Standard equipped, you won’t be able to summon a Herald; equipping a Standard will dismiss your Herald if you already have one in tow. The choice is ultimately up to you and your preferred play style. You can be a Herald Captain, Standard Captain, or a mix of both.
Now that the mechanics are out of the way, here are some examples of the types of Standards you’ll be able to find:

• Simple Standard of War
  
  
  • +10% Damage Dealt
    
  • +10% Maximum Morale
    
  • Minimum Level 20
    
  • Usage: You place a Banner of War on the field of battle.*
  
  
• Finely Woven Expert Standard of Victory (crafted)
  
  
  
  • +10% Damage Dealt
    
  • +10% Maximum Morale
    
  • +5% Maximum Power
    
  • Minimum Level 35
    
  • Usage: You place a Banner of Victory on the field of battle.*
  
  
• Intricately Woven Grand Master Standard of Hope (crafted, crit success)
  
  
  
  • +10% Damage Dealt
    
  • +20% Maximum Morale
    
  • Minimum Level 50
    
  • Usage: You place a Banner of Hope on the field of battle.*
  
  

*Standards with higher level requirements apply higher level Banner Buffs, so it’s generally a good idea to upgrade as higher level versions become available.

Herald Armaments

Book 10 also introduces some new types of Armaments. These function just as the old ones did – er, more like, just as the recently-fixed old ones do ;)

• Female Armaments
  
  
  • Shield-maiden
    
  • Swordswoman
    
  • Maid-at-arms
  
  
• Other Armaments
  
  
  
  • Rumor has it that there may be other Armaments to be found…
  
  

Shield-brother
The Shield-brother mechanic is intended to further reinforce your primary class role as a “Buffing God.” Designating a fellowship member as your Shield-brother will allow you to both buff and heal that player without having to retarget them. You can only have one Shield-brother chosen at a time.

• Captains will get 3 skills that target their Shield-brothers for Book 10:
  
  
  • Inspire – a melee attack that applies a HoT (Heal over Time) to your Shield-brother
    
  • To Arms – a very powerful, but short duration, offensive buff to your Shield-brother
    
  • Strength of Will – a buff that increases the amount of Morale your Shield-brother recovers from healing effects
  
  

Healing
One of our primary goals for Month of the Captain was to increase the over-all healing capabilities of the class. Here’s a rundown of the healing abilities you’ll have available, and how they’ll function:

• Words of Courage (WoC) – This skill received some significant updates in Book 10.
  
  
  • WoC is now insta-cast. This will help to keep you in the action even while you’re trying to fill a healing role.
    
  • WoC can now be cast on the run. Again, this will help to keep you mobile.
    
  • WoC now has a 3 second cooldown.
    
  • WoC now costs a moderate amount of Morale to cast.
    
    
    • This can be offset through the use of other skills in your healing arsenal, such as Rallying Cry and Revealing Mark. Equipping a crafted Standard of Hope will also help to increase your Morale pool.
      
    • That said, standing in the back ranks of your fellowship spamming WoC is still a viable strategy - its just going to soften you up a bit now.
    
    
  
  
• Inspire – (NEW) A melee attack applies a HoT directly to your Shield-brother.
  
• Rallying Cry – No change, but still useful. This will help you recover your Morale from WoC.
  
• Revealing Mark – No change, but still also useful. This will help you recover your Morale from WoC if you’re active in melee.
  
• Strength of Will – (NEW) A buff that increases the amount of healing your Shield-brother receives. This will increase the effectiveness of all of healers in your group, including yourself.

Combat Revives
For Book 10 we’ve made a few changes to the Captain’s combat revival abilities to both enable us to balance and expand on them in the long run, and to bring them more in line with Captain’s response-driven play style.

• Cry of Vengeance – In addition to providing the buffs that it did previously, Cry of Vengeance will now revive 1 defeated fellowship member.
  
• Escape from Darkness – Functions just as it did previously.
  
• Defy Corruption (formerly “Escape from Corruption”) – The “Escape from Corruption” Legendary Trait has been changed to “Defy Corruption”. Defy Corruption does two things:
  
  
  • Lowers the cooldown on Escape from Darkness by 10 minutes
    
  • Allows you to revive an additional fellowship member with your Cry of Vengeance
  
  

Summoning Horns
We made some changes to the way Summoning Horns work to address the long-standing feedback that it was weird that they were consumed on use. Boromir’s horn probably didn’t break when he used it, and yours shouldn’t either!

Here are the specifics:

• New “Finely Carved Rallying Horns” will be available from Captain Trainers
  
  
  • These horns will not be consumed on use.
    
  • These horns will consume 5 Traveling Rations from the person doing the traveling (not the Captain).
    
    
    • For what it’s worth 5 Traveling Rations (~10s) costs less than the horse ride from Bree to Trestlebridge (15s).
    
    
  
  
• All existing “Hewn Rallying Horns” will remain in game and will function as they have previously; they just won’t be sold anymore.
  
• Both “Finely Carved Rallying Horns” and “Hewn Rallying Horns” will be usable at level 40 (it was 45 previously).
  
• Please note: All Racial Trait travel skills require Traveling Rations as well now, so the likelihood of a player having rations on them will go up significantly in Book 10.

New Skills
In addition to the skills mentioned above, Captains can also learn the following abilities in Book 10:

• Blade of Elendil – A melee attack that has an increased chance to critical and that inspires your fellows to invoke the Light of Elendil (a Light Damage Damage over Time). This skill can only be executed after you’ve used Devastating Blow or Pressing Attack.
  
• Grave Wound – A melee attack that generates additional threat. When dealt to a foe bleeding from your Cutting Attack, your overall threat is also raised.
  
• Kick – A weak melee attack that interrupts your opponent.
  
• Withdraw – Lowers your threat to the opponents around you, but reduces your damage output for a short period of time.
  
• Time of Need – You sacrifice some of your morale to gain the same effect as defeating an enemy and to put yourself in a Battle-readied State.

Tweaks and Changes
We also made a number of smaller changes to existing skills, traits, and more:

• The Fear Resistance buff that Muster Courage gives you has been reduced from 50% to 20%. All other functionality of the skill remains the same.
  
• Reduced the Power Regen buff of the Banner of Victory slightly. It’s still good. In fact it’s still really good - just not as good.
  
• We now have new art for the War, Hope, and Victory Banners, and your Heralds even know how to wield the right ones!
  
• All of the Herald skills have new icon art.
  
• The duration of Motivating Speech has been increased to 30 minutes. That brings it in line with your Tactic buffs.
  
• War-cry’s animation is now shorter. You should now be able to loot monsters shortly after using the skill.
  
• In Defense of Middle-earth has not been changed. It remains awesome. :)

Month of the Hunter
Overview
There’s a lot going in for the Month of the Hunter; here’s the big picture and a few tantalizing details of what’s new for the #1 ranged damage class.

Travel
Fast travel has always been a specialty of the Hunter. Anyone can learn the way home. For the right price, a very fast horse can take you from point A to point B. However, no class but the Hunter has such broad and versatile knowledge of the land of Middle-Earth—or the ability to guide his fellows on their journey.

With the Month of the Hunter, this staple of the Hunter class improves with new and improved skills.

• Return to Camp
  
  
  • A new, floating bind point group travel skill
    
  • Get your group to (and out of) instances and major landscape camps fast
    
  • Look for new map notes to locate these camps around the world
  
  
• Group Travel Changes
  
  
  
  • Several of the existing Group Travel skills are available at lower levels
    
  • Five new Group Travel Skill Locations have been added
    
  • Four of the new travel skills are learned through class quests… find the quests!
  
  
• Find The Path
  
  
  
  • The bonus only applies when you are out-of-combat, but the skill is always on
    
  • Press the button once, and never worry about toggling it back on after combat
  
  
• Traveling Ration stack size increased to 50

Tracking
Hunters (and through them, their fellowship members) know the joy of tracking to find just the target you want. New improvements to the experience of tracking give the Hunter more information about their quarry… and even allow them to share that information more readily with their fellows!

• We now display more information on tracked creatures, and you can sort by any column
  
  
  • Monster name has level-relative conning coloration (like you’d see over its head)
    
  • The challenge level of the monster, such as Normal or Elite, is now displayed
    
  • The approximate distance at the time of tracking is displayed in a third column
  
  
• Sharing Tracked Targets
  
  
  
  • Advanced Hunters can share the location and name of their tracked targets with other members of their fellowship on their mini-maps
  
  
• “Passage of Nature” can now track Dragon-kind
  
  
  
  • Now, find your worms, salamanders, and drakes… in addition to beasts, insects, and creatures of nature!
  
  
• “Passage of Foes” can now track Giants
  
  
  
  • They may not be as evil or mean as Orcs, but they can still be trouble…. Oh, and they leave really big tracks!
  
  

Traps, Oils, and Bow Chants
Ever resourceful, the Hunter can make use of many different tools wrought by the hands of skillful craftsmen. Improvements and new additions to the line up of consumable items allow the Hunter to push harder and focus their skills.

• The duration of Fire and Light Oils has increased dramatically
  
  
  • The shortest duration oil now lasts for 5 minutes (yes, minutes!) not 10 seconds
    
  • Oils will now last for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, up to 15 minutes at the highest tier
  
  
• The clever Weaponsmiths of the world have devised new kinds of traps
  
  
  
  • The Quick Trap drops without any induction
    
  • The Strong Trap doesn’t trap as long, but it isn’t broken by damage
    
  • The Lure Trap draws the aggro of animals until the trap is destroyed
    
  • The Tripwire gives you a chance to open a Fellowship Maneuver on a target (it won’t do it every time, and it will only be usable out of combat)
  
  
• There are also new tiers of existing traps
  
  
  
  • Lower tier traps have always had a higher chance of being resisted by monster of higher levels, the new tiers give you a better chance of success against higher level monsters
  
  
• A new kind of Hunter-only consumable item crafted by Scholars: Bow Chants
  
  
  
  • 5 new items which empower your ranged weapon in different ways—pick the right Chant for the right job!
    
    
    • Foe-finder – Reduced chance for targets to evade bow skills
      
    • Shield-bane – Reduced chance for targets to block bow skills
      
    • Breach-finder – Bypass some of target’s damage mitigation
      
    • Wind-rider – Reduced power cost of bow skills
      
    • Whisper-draw – Reduced threat generated by bow skills
    
    
  • These buffs last for 20 minutes so each one goes a long way

Bows and Crossbows
Long has the debate raged over which implement was the superior weapon. With the Month of the Hunter’s changes, we have decided to make the crossbow a weapon with consistent damage and the bow one with more variability but with the possibility of bigger numbers.
What does this mean in game terms?

Damage:

• Bows have a greater variance in damage: the highs are higher, the lows are lower
  
• Conversely, crossbows have a narrower variance

Speed:

• Bows now exist at both extremes of speed, both the fastest and slowest ranged weapons are bows
  
• Conversely, crossbows have a narrower range of speeds

The biggest damage numbers will come from bows rather than crossbows—call it the power of the archer’s art. However, if random number generators hate you, the crossbow limits your lows as much as it does your highs.

If you want the fastest possible weapon, or the slowest possible weapon—both will now be bows. This represents that bows may be fired very fast, or that you can take your time. Crossbows are simple to use but are less flexible, and therefore have speeds more toward the middle range of bows.

Ultimately, you may find the special properties of a particular weapon out weighs preferences you may have for speed or damage variance. Then again, maybe you’ll steer clear of one or the other because of personal preference.

New Skills
As mentioned above, the Hunter is getting a bunch of new travel skills:

• Return to Camp – Travel with your fellowship to your current campsite bind point
  
• Guide to Michel Delving – Instant fellowship travel to Michel Delving in the Shire
  
• Guide to Ost Guruth – Instant fellowship travel to Ost Guruth in the Lonelands
  
• Guide to Evendim – Instant fellowship travel to Evendim
  
• Guide to West Angmar – Instant fellowship travel to a safe haven in Western Angmar
  
• Guide to East Angmar – Instant fellowship travel to the Eastern reaches of Angmar

In addition to the travel-skills mentioned above, we’ve made new combat-oriented skills:

• Heart Seeker – A large damage, long cooldown, long induction “mega-nuke” attack
  
• Strength of the Earth – An In-Combat Power Regen Channelling Skill
  
• Set Snare – A new “free” trap skill which slows and applies sizable damage over time

Tweaks and Changes
We also made a number of smaller changes to existing skills, traits, and more:

• Lowered the level where Hunters acquire the Dual-Wield trait (from 20 to 15)
  
• Increased power restored by Intent Concentration when the relevant Trait is slotted
  
• Increased the duration of the Beneath Notice skill when the relevant Trait is slotted
  
• Train “Rapid Recovery” grants a greater reduction time to your recovery (from 1.2s to 2s).
  
• Normalized the “Focus” point costs of skills, Rain of Arrows went from 4 to 3, Merciful Shot went from 5 to 6
  
• Reduced the frequency that the “Enduring Precision” trait allows you to gain Focus pips from one every 5 seconds to one every 10 seconds
  
• Some traveling skills now require more rations than others. Traveling to Angmar is a more perilous and taxing journey than visiting the Shire!
  
• Updated category listings in the Auction House to put “Oils and Chants” in a category under class items, also moved the “Traps” category under the class items group
  
• Placing a crafted trap whose effect breaks on damage will now disable the Hunter’s auto-attack to help avoid freeing newly trapped targets!